Writing Oathsworn

The First Minute.

“Where are you going?” my wife asks as I tie my running shoes on.

“5K,” I answer.

“You did 5K this morning,” she sighs in reply.

“Yeah,” I shrug. “I know. Writing.”

She nods and understands. During the twenty-five minutes I will be running, my head will be in some other world. Maybe the world of The Deepwood, or maybe with Tain Dreamrunner from the fantasy side of my novel series, or I will be cobbling together whatever next teaser or contest I have to work on. When people ask how long it takes me to write something, the answer might be best expressed in kilometers.

I really don’t know how long it takes me to write something. But I know a lot of writing happens when I’m not sitting there writing. So, let’s take more than a minute to dissect that first minute of the audio version of Oathsworn: Into The Deepwood, which took me well over 50 kilometers to write. You can listen to that minute right now, right here:

Immersion is hugely important to me. Being somewhere else is what so much entertainment is truly about, from music to reading and most definitely gaming. In games, sometimes it is being someone else as well. My gameroom has multiple Bluetooth surround systems and a series of color changing lights controlled by voice macros for when we play role playing games. If I declare FOREST, the room runs shades of green and birds chirp around you. DUNGEON is dark and uncomfortable, with flickering orange firelight against one wall. But, my game groups are the only ones playing in my room, and it is my job to transport you to the world of The Deepwood, even without cool environmental effects.

There’s a lot of writers on our team, but I have the honor of taking the torch first for the first several chapters and creating that immersion. Because of that – the first word you read or hear spoken by James Cosmo HAD to be green. It’s sensory. Immersion is sensory.

Green mud.

That’s an incredibly specific vision. How often is mud green? Usually it is wet soil, making it brown. But the Deepwood teems with too much life. The mud here is full of fungus, moss, who knows what weird land algae. So the mud itself is green.

Sucks at your boots.

Your boots don’t get stuck in the mud. Not in The Deepwood. The Deepwood actively sucks at your boots. A character. That consumes things, by sucking them in. The Deepwood is a massive entity and terrifying character unto itself. And you can feel that boot tug, can’t you? We all know some time we got our shoes stuck in some muck, and the feeling of effort to draw it out. And the sound of your shoe coming out of mud. This is work.

Every stride a challenge.

Not merely steps, these are long strides. And a challenge. Here’s a question for you, the adventurer. Does that mean the motion of your leg is challenging? Or is the Deepwood itself issuing a challenge, daring you to take yet another step? If I used a word like difficult, it loses that possible interpretation that this wood is a character itself. Challenging you.

As you trudge.

Travel in the deepwood is not simple, it is not easy. You don’t walk or tread. You trudge. Listen to the word. Trudge. Does it sound like the sound you pictured stepping in that green mud? Here, I’m using is as another level of immersion as an onomatopoeia, a written sound effect.

These words are as thick with layers as the Deepwood itself. Now, you might not notice, and you might not analyze like this, but on a subconscious level, I hope to draw you further in to this alien environment.

Your hands.

Not hands. Not The Free Company hands. YOUR hands. This is you. You’re in there. You’re pulling. You are the second active character we meet, the first being the Deepwood. The deepwood is sucking you in, your hands are resisting. This is a game. You are in it. The writing is in second person, speaking directly to the reader. That’s the way games like this work. Although, if you’re interested in a story in second person that’s not a game, go check out a novella I have that’s free if you have Kindle Unlimited, a few bucks other wise - click here: Happy Birthday, Daniel Dehaft.

grip the thick iron cable of the wire road,

Lore exposition time! What the heck? The wire road? Thick iron cable? But this is presented matter of fact, like I walked on the sidewalk. This is what these guys do. In their world, this is day to day life. In our world, we wonder, what the heck is the Wire Road?

So, as a nice author, I have to answer that question for you:

pulled taut through rings sunken into the trunks of hideous trees.

OK, wow. That’s actually a lot of stuff there. Pulled taut. This is not a limp rope. This thing also has resistance. It doesn’t want to be just there. It’s got tension. Through rings sunken. How do you sink rings into trees? You really wouldn’t, would you? But we’ve all seen trees that have grown around a piece of fence of something, engulfing a man made object. For these rings to be sunken, they have been there a long time and the tree is growing up around it. Into the trunks of hideous trees. Hideous. Wow, that’s a pretty strong word for a tree. It’s hideous, but we need it to support the wire road. There’s an agreement with this character of The Deepwood. If we want to pass through it, somehow we need to deal with the repugnant nature of the actual wood itself.

For days now,

Days. These guys have been walking. For days. Now, given all the trudging and such, that really might not be all that far. Travel is slow.

it has been the only evidence of humanities existence in the Deepwood.

Really, now? That means there’s been no ruins. No guard towers. No actual paved surface. No fires. No merchants. No other people. The cities in The Deepwood are like islands, separated by shark infested waters. Humanity. Not humankind. Not humans. Humanity. Kindness.

Clinging to this life line

Sounds like dangerous, doesn’t it? Clinging. Frightened children cling. Life line. Clinging to life. That’s pretty harsh, although it should be. I could have written “Holding the wire”. But that’s not it at all. It’s clinging to this life line. This implies that letting go is… deadly?

has not worked for everyone, though.

Plot point!  What? Who? What, dear narrator, are you possibly talking about?

You are one less than when you left Verum.

Huh!? But… but… We’re The Oathsworn. This is the introduction to just how perilous the Deepwood is. Clinging to life lines and LOSING members of your precious team of heroes. We also now know of Verum. Verum is at least a few days away. According to what we know already. Sounds pretty far.

 It was nothing any of you saw.

Well, that’s unfair! Something happened off screen? We couldn’t stop it?

Nope. And the dark is scary because you DON’T know what’s there. Something you didn’t see doesn’t even provide a clue as to how to prevent it from happening again. There’s also the nagging feeling that this is somehow literally the Deepwood itself, the interpretation is left completely open.

Just a thrum in the wire behind you

Thrum. Picture that iron cable, pulled taut, and pluck. This is another immersive moment of storytelling. This is a sound that you can feel.

 and then a scream disappearing into the dark.

OK, so a scream is a bit more obvious a sound. The Thrum came from behind, so this was the last guy in your group. Something came from behind. And the scream disappeared into the dark. Not a scream in the dark. The scream, disappeared. Whoever was there at the end of your group was pulled into the Deepwood still alive and still screaming.

 The memory is fresh in your mind,

Was this yesterday? An hour ago? Doesn’t matter, hearing one of your party forcibly abducted is the type of event that stays with you, and you probably replay that moment over and over in your mind. With the obvious thought of – what if I’m next.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be the guy at the back at this time.

but this is not the time to mourn. Not here.

What!?  Not here? Keep moving! It’s not that there is no time to mourn. This is not the time for it. It would be a bad idea.

We’re still travelling, not stopping for anything. Whatever was out there might still be. Vines. Very restrictive. Choking. Oppressive. Rope like. Black tree trunks. Well, ew. Spattered with what? Spattered is a chaotic word, often associated with… blood? Not dotted, not marked, but spattered. And sickly pink cysts? Well, that’s just gross now. The pink, to me, is a vaguely fleshy impression, again, imparting an other-worldly sense of character to this place.

block your view ahead.

This is all there is.  Your entire existence right now is vines, black trunks and a spattering of sickly pink cysts. This is awful! We can’t even see where we’re going, all we have is this wire, which is a life line that didn’t even work, since someone appears to have died by all of the evidence we have. This does not sound like a good situation to be in.

Things? What things? Again, like the darkness, I play on the fear of the unknown and let your mind fill in whatever terrible things it might be. Slither away. Snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Rustle? Like stalks snapping back in place after something was watching and then pulled away? Undergrowth. There’s not even ground or bare dirt to be seen here.

but they are of little concern.

Really? I don’t know, when I go for a hike and things are slithering and rustling, I get pretty concerned.

So now we go back to immersion. Every noise in this place? This is full Dolby surround of constant slithering and rustling. This place is alive, this place is not static, this place is scary.

 It is only when the sounds slither towards you that you need to worry.

Heck, the last one we lost, there wasn’t even a sound. Worry? You need to worry NOW? What’s out there that makes sound? How are you not afraid of every sound?

Easy: